Eggshells
by Eliza Ghost
Summary: Bud Hyde leaves, not even saying goodbye to his son and promising Edna he'll come back, but Hyde isn't sure if he can trust him.


**A/N: Hello people. This is a short (probably the shortest thing I've uploaded on here, but hey, quality over quantity, right?) one shot about Steven Hyde. It was really hard to call him Steven this whole time and not Hyde...Anyways, I hope it fits in with what the show has said about Bud, and if not, I'll be glad to go back and fix any detail that doesn't. I hope you guys like it.**

**Disclaimer: Yeah, I definitely do not own That 70's Show, but if I didn't, I probably wouldn't be posting stories here, now would I?  
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"Did your father say goodbye to you?" Edna Hyde said calmly, walking into her twelve year old son's room.

"No," Steven answered back, confused, "where did he go?"

"He said that he needed to think for a few days, but he'd come back on Monday," his mother replied, still collected.

Steven stood up. "Why?"

"I don't know," Edna answered, a tinge of sadness in her voice. "He could have at least said goodbye to you."

Steven said nothing. He stood still and emotionless, like a puppet waiting to be manipulated to life.

"Come one, lets go," his mother said, all traces of sadness suddenly gone, at least on the surface.

"Where?"

"I don't know," Edna said, opening the front door to their tiny house. Steven followed her out the door and down the sidewalk like an obedient duckling, sauntering mindlessly in her path.

Steven wasn't really thinking as they walked. He wasn't devastated or fine or anything at all, really. He was a zombie in the sunlight of the warm June day. Bud said he would come back on Monday, but the voice in Steven's head was suspicious. He told himself that this was it, this was the day he become one of the kids whose fathers left mysteriously, breaking their promise to return. But he had three more days before his pa's declared return, so he would just have to wait it out.

The mother and son continued walking until they got to the better part of the neighborhood, the part that held Steven's school, and his friend's homes. Edna led her son over to a bench in the local park, were he unquestioningly sat. His parents always did this. Whenever they had a problem, they would run away and cover it up.

He looked around at all of the people in the park; little girls in flowing yellow dresses, mothers basking in the joy of their kids' happiness, boys playing tag and knocking each other over in the warm grass, and fathers holding their kid's hands and laughing with them. Steven was wearing a black shirt and expressionless face. He didn't belong with these people.

He heard some birds chirping in the tree behind the bench. He watched them, squinting at the glares of the sun. The mother bird squirmed in the nest, knocking one of her babies over the edge, causing it to helplessly plunder to the hard ground below. It landed with a soft thump, so soft that Edna didn't even notice it, and if she did, she didn't care to find the source of the noise. Steven's eyes focused on the innocent nestling, which he was sure had to be dead.

"Ma," he said, nudging Edna's shoulder.

"What?" She asked. Her son pointed at the limp little bird that had fallen behind them. Edna simply shrugged.

Steven sat still the rest of their escape, watching nothing, contemplating nothing, the baby bird a few feet behind him, broken.

Come Monday, Bud did return as promised. He didn't leave for more than a night or two for maybe a year after that, but sure enough, he would leave again. And again. And again. It became like a dance that nobody knew the steps to. Sometimes Steven just wished Bud would disappear and get it over with, but he feared that inevitable day at the same time. His world was fragile now, but it had cracked once, and he knew it would break one day. It wouldn't take much, and Steven wasn't sure if he cared which way it broke, the way things were now. He would just have to wait for it.

**A/N: Well, my first ever one shot on here! If any of you read my other fic, Hyde's Redo, I'm going to try to update it this weekend. Just so you know :) So I hope you liked this, and please review!**


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